


Amen

by MellytheHun



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Jewish Character, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Erik Has Feelings, First Kiss, Fluff, Holocaust Mention, Hurt/Comfort, Languages and Linguistics, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pining, Telepathy, Tumblr Prompt, erik's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Anonymous asked: Cherik these are all based on Arabic words for Love “Al-hoyam, which is a love so strong that it drives you to madness and insanity“ “Al-kholla" is defined as love and friendship that are ingrained deep in the heart. “Al-najwa" a love that engulfs one's heart entirely that it feels as though it is in constant pain, but as it is also a word derived from the Arabic word for salvation, it is a love that causes a need for saving while providing you salvation in that love.





	Amen

##  **Al-kholla**

“Get this man a towel!”

Furious beyond all reason, Erik doesn’t bother with pleasantries - he snatches the towel that’s kindly handed to the other man by some irrelevant suit, and shivers in it, sopping wet on the deck of the enormous government-appointed ship that has just ruined his life’s work.

“Erik - your power - it’s incredible, I’ve never seen anything -”

“ _Ruhe_!”  [German: ‘shut up!’]

The smartly dressed (if also, very drenched) man gives pause, but does not seem to understand what Erik has said.

“I… I simply wanted to tell you that your power was astonishing. I’ve truly never seen anything like it before.”

“No, I’m sure you haven’t, professor, but if you do have the ability to _shut up_ , now would be a very good time to _exercise_ that ability,  _mitarev_.”  [Hebrew: ‘meddler/schemer.’]

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“No - you called me ‘professor,’ just now. How could you possibly know…”

Erik cocks a brow at the academic, and says simply, “what? You think my mind is such an unguarded place that if you invade my space, I will not also absorb what I can from you? You have no need to know who, or what I am, professor, but of many things I can claim to be, a hunter is one of them. And a hunter does not take kindly to intrusion. I am skilled at information gathering, and any time one thinks they are gathering data on me, I can assure you, I am doing the same, right back.”

Astonished, and almost disbelieving, the professor asks, “you mean to tell me that you’re so hyper-vigilant, that when I projected my thoughts into your mind, you - what? Followed my inner-voice back into my own head to gather surface-information?”

“I can track, professor. I’m a _hunter_ , _der Jäger_ , all of my enemies can be tracked, and you are no different.”  [German: ‘hunter.’]

Rather than seeming offended, the professor’s eyes widen in surprise, and a reluctant smile begins to spread on his face.

“I’m Charles. Charles Xavier. Please don’t call me ‘professor,’ I really, really don’t like being aged that way. I never asked, I’m sorry - is it alright for me to call you by your first name?”

It takes a few beats pass, but at a loss to do anything else, Erik eventually nods.

Charles smiles broadly at him, and says, “I would tell you that I’m sorry I stopped you in your journey - I could sense that you have long sought Shaw, and you have gone to great lengths to get so close to him this day - but I cannot say I am regretful that I saved you from drowning in your attempt to capture him. It may be selfish, but I’m quite glad you’re alive, Erik. You seem… truly remarkable.”

Turning away to dry off his hair, Erik begins to tune Charles out, but then Charles adds on, “and not just because of your mutation.”

Pausing, Erik turns back to Charles, and asks, “have you said that only because you read my mind, and sensed it was what I wanted to hear?”

“I imagine you would have felt the intrusion of me again if I had - no. I have not read your mind. You are _at least_ trilingual, which is incredible, but something tells me you are not limited simply to German, and what I suspect is Hebrew. You have what sounds like a Polish accent, but you’ve traversed most of Western Europe - you are incredibly bright. I don’t mean to sound like a snob, but it’s honestly not often I meet someone I can… stand as an intellectual equal with.”

Begrudgingly flattered, Erik shifts slightly closer to Charles, as Charles steps towards him, his own towel draped over his shoulders.

“You are cultured, well-traveled, competent to a frightening degree, efficient, and likely sharper than I’ll ever be - and tonight, personal agenda aside, you showed immense courage, ambition, and cunning. I’ve known you all of ten minutes, Erik, and you are quite possibly the person I respect and admire the most in all the world.”

Erik’s sharp cheekbones taking on a rosy tint go unnoticed in the dark of the night.

“This is a very sad night for you, then, Charles, if you’ve met all manner of man, and have found that  _I_ am who you admire most.”

Charles lets out a bark of a laugh, and asks kindly, “I… I don’t suppose you would appreciate a game of chess, now would you?”

Using his telepathy, Charles is somehow able to locate a small, travel-sized chessboard on the ship, and he commandeers a room for them to be left alone in.

He keeps conversation light, all things considered, and he makes for markedly pleasant company.

It is over the chessboard, in drying clothes, and between trading some basic, personal information (and an occasional joke) that the respect Charles apparently feels for Erik - Erik begins to return, and admiration blossoms.

 

##  **Al-hoyam**

There were golden stars Erik and his family were made to wear during the war; patches, crudely constructed Stars of David, with ‘Jude,’ written on them. There were other labels, though – different shapes and colors, sewn into clothes to indicate one’s station in life.

One, in particular, Erik remembers vividly is the pink triangle.

The mark of the ‘homosexual.’ Of damnation. 

He remembers what was done to them. He remembers the inhumanity.

Remembering, and being unable to forget that cruelty, begs the question, in Erik’s own mind, what in all the world he is doing, spending time  _fantasizing about_   _Charles_ – a man who might pop into his head at any moment, and see his thoughts, clear as day.

Erik does not believe Charles is a cruel man – in fact, he thinks Charles to be too kind. Too soft. Too gentle. He knows that Charles, having suffered abuse, understands pain, suffering, but he does not understand persecution, and that has left him polite, with curved edges, no sharpness to him. No animal fear, like Erik carries.

Still, knowing what the world may think of his budding infatuation, Erik watches Charles running in the new sunlight of the bright day, his cheeks and lips flushed dark, his hair curling with sweat across his forehead – and he wants as he has never wanted before.

“I must be losing my mind,” Erik muses, staring down at Charles from his position on the balcony.

Charles comes to a stop beside Hank, bending down and huffing, laughing, but very much out of breath, and clearly trying to re-establish his commonly calm heart without appearing to try too hard.

There’s a thermos down there that has stainless steel in it, or about it. Erik can’t see it, so he doesn’t know where the metal is on the thermos, he can only sense it.

The thermos has crisp, cold water sitting in it, and, not minding that he’s likely lost all hope of sanity, Erik uses his powers to lift the thermos from wherever it is, and guides it towards Charles until it bumps Charles on the shoulder.

Surprised, Charles stands up straighter, staring strangely at the floating bottle, and looking around the grounds to find who has levitated his water to him.

Enjoying the sweet, befuddled expression on Charles’ face, Erik lets the man flounder for a moment, before whistling to get his attention.

Charles looks up to the balcony, spots him, and smiles brilliantly.

He raises his fore and middle finger to his right temple, staring up at Erik.

_Thank you, my friend. I am embarrassed to know whether or not you saw me struggling that last lap._

Ridiculously taken with Charles, and his _manners_ , Erik smirks, leaning his arms over the ledge of the balcony.

 _No need to be embarrassed, Charles. I quite admire your athleticism. You practically flew, ahuvati_.  [Hebrew: ‘my love.’]

_What does that mean?_

_Learn conversational Hebrew, Charles, and think it back at me, someday._

He sees Charles laugh, take a swig from his water, and hears Charles think back;

_It better be nice. If I find you’ve been insulting me in languages I have no way of knowing, I will be very cross._

Erik smiles down at Charles, and replies,  _I’m sure you’re quite a fright, cross. I certainly wouldn’t test it._

 _I sense you find my threats as legitimate as a kitten’s_ , Charles mentions.

 _Your threats are at least equal to that of an_ _ **adult** cat_, Erik sarcastically comforts, _Don’t put yourself down so much, Charles._

When Charles laughs at that, it’s a bloody song, it’s beautiful, and Erik thinks the sound reminds him of wind chimes, and wedding bells, from memories frayed and torn at the edges of what was once a happy childhood.

He’s gone on Charles, and that’s dangerous, and it could be a terrible fate, but Erik thinks that if he’s lost his mind, there’s little use worrying about where it’s been lost to now. If it’s been lost to Charles Xavier, perhaps there’s even hope of it being returned to him, someday.

 

##  **Al-najwa**

“ _Baruch atta Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam_ ,” Erik whispers, his nose brushing against Charles’, his voice shaking, the pink triangles haunting his inner-eye, “ _asher natan lanu et derekh ha’yeshua.._.”

Charles’ incandescent eyes gaze up at him, and Erik’s heart skips a beat - he feels lost and found all at once. Pinned by that inquisitive stare, but bound in some way he likes, and would prefer to stay, rather than try to escape.

He loves Charles, and Charles is the greatest, perhaps, only, friend Erik has ever had, wanted, or needed.

He covets Charles, and his want makes him dangerous, makes him unstable, irrational, mad, unwound - it’s all-consuming. He creates it, it unravels his soul, and he can’t escape it.

And Charles saves him every day.

Charles heals broken pieces of his spirit with every passing glance, with every casual touch, and conspiratorial whisper. Charles has delivered this madness, this wanton, lustful, all-encompassing, Earth-shattering madness unto him, but with a single touch, Charles eases the aching heat of it all.

With a single word, Charles absolves him of all that he’s ever been, or done, wrong. Charles heals what is ill and broken, his compassion is honest, eternal, and omnipresent in a way Erik used to believe only one thing in the universe could be.

At the same time that Charles sets the madness of love into motion, in Erik, his kind heart absorbs and repurposes it, creates something beautiful with it, makes Erik’s tangled rat king of a soul something recognizable again.

Charles is the madness, and the lucidity. He is the illness, and the cure. He is the damnation, and the salvation. 

“… Amen.”

“Please, tell me what you’ve said…” Charles asks softly, pleadingly.

“Blessed are you, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, Who gave to us the way… of salvation… oh, Charles…”

Erik brushes his thumb over Charles’ lower lip, his hands trembling as he does, “it is the blood that maketh an atonement of the soul. I will kiss you tonight, Charles, and spill blood on the morrow for it. Not because it is written, and not because I really… _believe_ the writings literally, as I once did as a child… but because I am… unsalvageable, Charles.”

“Erik -”

“No, truly, Charles - I am… broken in ways no mortal men can truly ever mend. Peace was never an option - I stand by that. I never thought love, or what refuge love could offer me, was an option, though. It never crossed my mind, even, that I could still be capable of something as good, and pure, as love. I never imagined someone like you was out there, Charles, and now I can hardly bear to go on in the world, knowing you are out there to be had, kept, loved, coveted - and I’m in a madness, I know, but this fever will not break. I am loyally yours, Charles, before I am anything else, I pledge this to you. Forever.”

Charles’ eyes are wide, glassy, and knowing, although he’s not in Erik’s head.

He simply accepts Erik’s vows, accepts Erik for what others would have him brutally tortured, and killed for being, thinking, and feeling - Charles listens to his madness, and turns it into grace, somehow.

“Then let’s bleed together, Erik,” Charles offers softly, his voice fragile, barely audible, “You’ve saved me from blindness, and foolish naiveté, and if I can save you from some of the longer shadows that are cast in your mind, I pledge myself to you just the same. I do. And, if it makes any difference at all, I don’t think either of us have to bleed for it. I’ll respect your choices, Erik - if blood must be drawn for you to find spiritual comfort with this, then I will bleed with you, but don’t mistake this for… I don’t know. Something else. I will follow you, Erik - I will walk beside you, into the great unknown, bleeding or uncut, and you have my every blessing, and frankly, my every begging, to _please_ kiss me.”

Hesitation settles deep in Erik’s chest - this is new, and frightening for deeply-engrained reasons. He fights the urge to run from this, though. 

He knows that when he kisses Charles, he will feel lighter, he will feel cleansed, he will feel blessed, and he may not be able to escape his love for Charles, this love that strangles him, and yet breathes for him still, this love that plucks his eyes out, but somehow offers a better view of all things for it - this love that damns him, and saves him all at once. He cannot escape it, but he does not need to.

Charles is the darkness of his greed, and the light of his compassion. He is gluttony, and sacrifice - Charle is all. 

 _All_.

“Amen,” Erik repeats, finally, achingly, leaning down to kiss Charles’ full, red lips.

 _Amen_ , Charles sends into his mind - but that is background noise.

Charles kisses Erik back, and Erik feels six wings expand from his spirit, spread and stretch - Charles kisses Erik back, and Erik hears a thousand choirs singing, those bells and chimes all ringing - Charles kisses Erik back, and his heart pounds louder than any noise that has ever drummed, and he is whole. He is saved.

He is not alone.

Not anymore.

Never again.


End file.
